AMD 28nm chips are still TSMC

Despite a major effort on the part of GlobalFoundries to ramp up its 28nm process and make it more stable and reliable, we are hearing that the company still faces issues.

The issues will hopefully disappear in the future as the Fab 8 in Malta, New York State is doing some test wafers at 20nm and 14nm. However, we were surprised to learn from AMD and people close to the matter that the company is making both of its 28nm Temash and Kabini APUs at TSMC.

They are both expected in Q2 2013, probably around Computex time, or early June 2013. GlobalFoundries is expected to design some 20nm and 14nm for AMD and let’s hope that both AMD and GlobalFoundries will have better luck with 20nm products.

We met several AMD executives at CES and they told us that with 32nm Richland, 28nm Temash and Kabini, things should start to look better for the company. Basically it looks like 2013 will be a much better year for AMD, which is not a surprise as it could hardly do worse than it did in 2012 and this is the general feeling of many AMD executives as well as some major partners.